Tag: President Trump

The US / Iraq Spat: What is it Really About? (Occupation, Drones, Oil, Petro$ ..)

Critical thinkers, after a spat or confrontation, will reflect on the encounter and attempt to understand the motives of those involved. This requires getting out of your own shoes and into the shoes of others.

We usually assume the best in others by default. People we meet for the first time we try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Over time we can then compare words with actions and be a pretty good judge of character.

We are also influenced by our upbringing, and our schooling, and if that involves government schools or even most private schools, the bias is there. We have learned of George Washington and the cherry tree (myth), we have learned about Honest Abe (myth) and we have learned about good government.

There is no doubt that this base operating system allows most people to see government as a natural safety net, and a natural “go-to” for any life problem that comes along, the Nanny State can take care of it best. But I digress.

When it comes to thinking about the United States of America, or more accurately, the US Empire, there is a natural inclination to think of American Exceptionalism. Being proud of America to the point of thinking it knows best for every people group around the world is as American as “apple pie”.

So when President Donald Trump says:

Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil. (emphasis added)

.. you have to really wonder, what about all the times he references oil in Syria as being critical for the US to protect or wanting 50% of Iraq’s oil revenue to pay for all that the US has done in Iraq since the invasion, is it really about the oil, or things links to and through the oil?

Whitney Webb from a Mint Press article does a great job at looking at all the angles to determine motives. She even references another great thinker, Tom Loungo and his Gold, Goats N’Guns web page in her attempt to get her mind around what Trump, the Neo-Cons and the War Party are angling for:

Yet, given the centrality of the recent Iraq-China oil deal in guiding some of the Trump administration’s recent Middle East policy moves, this appears not to be the case. The distinction may lie in the fact that, while the U.S. may now be less dependent on oil imports from the Middle East, it still very much needs to continue to dominate how oil is traded and sold on international markets in order to maintain its status as both a global military and financial superpower.

Bingo Whitney.

This is the core that fuels the MIC, the Deep State, the War Party as well as the US Empire itself. Without the petrodollar, the US military can no longer have its $1T annual budget, and the whole US economic charade would be revealed.

 

The article continues to say:

As Kei Pritsker and Cale Holmes noted in an article last year for MintPress:

The takeaway from the petrodollar phenomenon is that as long as countries need oil, they will need the dollar. As long as countries demand dollars, the U.S. can continue to go into massive amounts of debt to fund its network of global military bases, Wall Street bailouts, nuclear missiles, and tax cuts for the rich.”

Yes, at its core, this is probably the only long-range thinking the US Empire cares about with the only exception of possibly Israel’s survival.

Historically, Iraq remembers:

It appears that the ever-present role of the petrodollar in guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East remains unchanged. The petrodollar has long been a driving factor behind the U.S.’ policy towards Iraq specifically, as one of the key triggers for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s decision to sell Iraqi oil in Euros opposed to dollars beginning in the year 2000. Just weeks before the invasion began, Hussein boasted that Iraq’s Euro-based oil revenue account was earning a higher interest rate than it would have been if it had continued to sell its oil in dollars, an apparent signal to other oil exporters that the petrodollar system was only really benefiting the United States at their own expense.

Libya also found out the hard way what happens to countries outside of the US Empire’s orbit.

The tilt away from the US Empire started earlier last year in AUG2019 when Iraq asserted its sovereignty on its border with Syria:

Luongo also argued that the current tensions between U.S. and Iraqi leadership preceded the oil deal between Iraq and China by several weeks, “All of this starts with Prime Minister Mahdi starting the process of opening up the Iraq-Syria border crossing and that was announced in August. Then, the Israeli air attacks happened in September to try and stop that from happening, attacks on PMU forces on the border crossing along with the ammo dump attacks near Baghdad ..

Then, it was Iraq looking at options for its own rebuilding (the US Empire has squandered billions of dollars on projects that help the US Empire more than it does the Iraqi infrastructure, even though the US invasion was a mistake and rightly should have the US bear the expense of rebuilding).

Iraq looked to the east, with China, and found a better deal than the one that Trump offered Iraq:

While Trump demanded half of Iraq’s oil revenue in exchange for completing reconstruction projects (according to Abdul-Mahdi), the deal that was signed between Iraq and China would see around 20 percent of Iraq’s oil revenue go to China in exchange for reconstruction.

It was right after that Chinese conference that Iraq started seeing unrest, “coincidentally”:

Abdul-Mahdi’s delegation to China ended on September 24, with the protests against his government that Trump reportedly threatened to start on October 1. Reports of a “third side” firing on Iraqi protesters were picked up by major media outlets at the time, such as in this BBC report which stated:

Reports say the security forces opened fire, but another account says unknown gunmen were responsible….a source in Karbala told the BBC that one of the dead was a guard at a nearby Shia shrine who happened to be passing by. The source also said the origin of the gunfire was unknown and it had targeted both the protesters and security forces. (emphasis added)”

This is exactly what the US did in Ukraine back in 2014 .. it has the US Empire’s fingerprints all over it.

Then ..

.. after my [Abdul-Mahdi] return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement.”

“I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day on canceling the China agreement. When the defense minister said that those killing the demonstrators was a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened myself and the defense minister in the event that there was more talk about this third party ..

Yes, this is the true character of the US empire, in actions, verses the words from George W. Bush in DEC2005:

Just over two-and-a-half years ago, Iraq was in the grip of a cruel dictator who had invaded his neighbors, sponsored terrorists, pursued and used weapons of mass destruction, murdered his own people, and for more than a decade, defied the demands of the United Nations and the civilized world. Since then, the Iraqi people have assumed sovereignty over their country, held free elections, drafted a democratic constitution, and approved that constitution in a nationwide referendum. Three days from now, they go to polls for the third time this year, and choose a new government under the new constitution.

Democracy arrived in Iraq in 2005, but now 15 years later, with the US still occupying this country that it wrongfully invaded, the US wants a monopoly on “re-building Iraq” and “keeping ISIS out of Iraq”.

Whatever, go home US Empire!!

Peace out

-SF1

When Desperation Demands a Plan “E” – What a Coup Can Do for You

I am a detail guy, so sometimes I get lost in the rabbit trails just 50 foot above the tree line doing my CSI work, but then there is something that demands that I soar to 10,000 foot or more to get a handle on the big picture. I wonder is that is what is behind the saying ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’?

Retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. has an article on Lew Rockwell today that helped me see the big picture. While I want to be aware of the details of life (micro and macro, local/state/national and global) I also do not want to be caught off guard by the trends.

Karen offers that there have been four major efforts so far in the coup that has split DC in two and a fifth effort that is already underway:

  • If the predictable election of 2016 fails to deliver the controllable neoconservative president,
  • if a pseudo-McCarthyite campaign against an economically recovering and energy-independent Russia fails again,
  • if putting your own guys in the National Security Council also fails, and
  • if an impeachment seems likewise doomed to peter out, what do you have left?

If you are a war-whoring, petrodollar-preserving, rapture-ready, neoconservative globalist…. well, you’re in luck!

  • President Pence is ready to step in.

Yes, the war party, the CIA/FBI/Deep State, a majority of Republicans and Democrats, the MIC , many evangelical Christians and all those that hate peace are aligned as never before. Their collective effort is focused to:

… stop Trump’s early promises to put America first, bring our troops home, secure borders, and spend the American taxpayer bounty on American production and infrastructure – have paved the way for a wholesale public acceptance of the neoconservative agenda.

If you doubt that these state-centric actors just happen to be able to align the stars and have MSM mimic its very words .. consider just one element of the apparatus that is a parasite to this country:

The CIA, now nearly 80 years old, has become a global power, with global influence. It should surprise no one that the CIA is also a major influence over US territory, the US Government, and the very opinions and perspectives of the average US citizen.  Media and entertainment, technology and communications, access to cash, total information awareness of our money, movements, thoughts and speech, with the complete opacity of its own budget and actions – all of this this is part of the CIA’s mission today.  If you thought it was just other country’s riots, assassinations and regime changes, you are behind the times.

Talk about power and influence .. and a whole lot of sociopaths all rolled into one, these people and this collective will not be going away any time soon, and they are not susceptible to the results of elections either (like anything is) .. but I digress.

Now about VP Mike Pence as a hedge to keep things status-quo back home in the old USA:

Mike Pence was a predictable vice-presidential choice.  A nondescript statist, evangelical “good” man, he served his role as a non-threatening, mildly competent second.  He would also be a fourth or fifth tier hedge against the uncontrollable populist and hearty sinner Donald Trump, a man who had never won an election in his life before 2016.  The CIA has decades of experience in choosing presidents, and vice presidents, manipulating both campaigns and popular opinion, creating crises on demand, and surveilling citizens and parties and candidates – in other countries.  The unexpected spontaneous and massive patriotic crowds convening for Trump throughout the 2016 campaign alone must have told the CIA what was written on the wall.  Even with then CIA Director Brennan’s assistance, and that of the FBI, Hillary couldn’t catch the imagination of voters, or bring them out to see her preach, even when she spoke in our native accents.

While Trump has been elusive enough combating the first four efforts listed above, there has been damage to what he can actually impact that would bring him anywhere close to what he promised on the election path:

In these four failures to bring down Trump, the deep state/CIA alliance has indeed achieved much, and won much. Trump has been constrained in his efforts to fulfill his most popular domestic initiatives, while the continued direct and indirect attacks on him in the mainstream, left-leaning “independent” and government media have worn down his popular support. Independents and libertarians who may have leaned Trumpward have all but peeled away and are looking at other parties and candidates. NeverTrumpers already favored Pence, and that was a major reason for his inclusion on the 2016 ticket. Troop deployments, Pentagon funding and interventionist wars have all been reignited.  The Federal Reserve, once a Trump target, is enthusiastically burning up the printing presses, with very little mainstream discussion and with Trump applauding, not auditing.  The upcoming nuclear destruction of Iran and the unleashing of a long wave of war and terror is just around the corner.

So if you are the CIA, you can’t just duplicate what you did in the 1950s (assassinate Iran’s elected president) or in the 1960s (rub out JFK who threatened to splinter the CIA into the wind) you have to get innovative:

Who will best serve the deep state/CIA/petrodollar empire in November 2020 and beyond? Trump, if he lives long enough will be re-elected by actual voters, and as a lame duck he may prove difficult. The Democratic field is split between reliable lackeys and unreliable ones, and while wars may be ensured, there’s nothing the CIA hates more than unpredictability. What to do with the gift of four failed domestic operations against Trump?

The answer is, devise a health event (mental or physical or both) that results in a sitting President Pence just in time for a reasonably short campaign, in a time of war, against an uninspiring array of old white man from a divided opposition party.

Plan E. This is the last resort the CIA has available up its sleeve. The common person on the street sees Trump and Pence as one in the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. I really hope we do not see the day when Pence is president, like Hillary, their view is the more war around the world, the better.

So how does this play into the incredible events of the last week when the US executive branch can just go drone a military leader of another country that we are not even “legally” at war with? You have to know the back story that MSM fails in their journalism to provide the American public:

… career operational CIA Gina “Chemical” Haspel and her sidekick, former 30-year CIA man, evidence destroyer, fellow torturer, and current CIA contractor Jose Rodriguez are already spending more time briefing and conspiring with Mike Pence than Donald Trump ..

There you go. When your VP starts to be involved in things without you, you have to know that something is up. In my mind, Trump has his hands full and has enemies at every turn. The only things that holds him back is:

  1. self-preservation (he knows the story of JFK)
  2. brainwashing (with neo-cons 360, he readily comes under their influence in time)

We have seen this full on with the decision to drone murder an Iranian general on a peace mission in Iraq and the Iraqi general host:

His manipulation into the assassination of Kassem Soleimani, who after defeating the stated US enemy ISIS in the region, was a messenger and architect of a detente in his last visit to Baghdad, but also representing another step away from the petrodollar, was pure CIA textbook.  Tell him what you want (true or not), nurture a sense of urgency, and know your target in order to psychologically manipulate him.

So like a tragic play, here we are on 11JAN2020 where Trump’s week ahead involves impeachment proceedings. I am sure that there is plenty of stress .. so …

… if Trump takes a break or sees a doctor now, our public suspicions of mental and physical incompetence are 100% confirmed, and we “expect” his imminent decline from the stage. The “surprise” strike on Soleimani has given the Senate a new “Constitutional” reason to be angry with Trump, so it improves the chances of a serious trial, and even removal from office. It’s a win-win because even if not removed, the Senate trial, and Trump’s predictable reaction to it, will serve to explain away a stroke, embolism, heart attack, or mental breakdown, all leading to a welcome peacefulness and stability of an ascendant Mike Pence.

Just know that Karen’s last line was pure sarcasm. I guess all us veterans have this baked into our character as a result of our experiences.

I am not a fan of Pence as you probably can tell. A dangerous man because he fully buys into the zeal, passion and noble cause to usher in the “End Times” on an express lane.

Pence, an evangelical neoconservative who deserves to be President as it is surely God’s Will, will also need support from his deep state friends Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo. He will have it in spades. The warfare-welfare empire is saved for another day.

The anticipated fallout of a Pence presidency:

Property values will continue to rise in the five counties surrounding D.C., Americans will continue to get poorer and angrier, and in their frustration and fear, many will even demand more state assistance, and probably a draft. A new kind of draft, whereby soldiers can “earn” student loan debt relief, and the like. Socialism, American-style, who can oppose that? What fun we can expect under a Pence presidency, and I give him a second and maybe even a third term.

This is not said to scare anyone, just a reality check on what kind of America to expect in the 2020s with someone like Pence (or Hillary) driving.

It is my grand-kids who I would weep for, another generation of cannon fodder for the war party elite to use and abuse.

When will this cycle ever stop?

-SF1

Words Matter: What Happens When it is the Right Word, But the Wrong Translation?

Don’t worry, I am not talking about the Bible which has been misinterpreted time and again from the original languages as well as from the context of the time in which it was said centuries ago.

I am talking about Western Media misinterpreting Iranian leadership’s words, whether mistakenly or on purpose, ends up giving those that worship their government-directed news sources a false impression of what really is. Remember, this nation is driven lately with “feelings”, and so how better a way to get people back on-board the war-train but to twist what is said, and hope no one catches it.

Moon of Alabama reflects on the time when someone mentioned that a certain country must be:

“wiped off the map”

Can you remember this? Almost fifteen years ago, in 2005 it was reported that Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad said this about Israel. Can you imagine the brouhaha? Oh yes, tensions between the US (protectorate of Israel) and Iran flared, even though those specific words were never said in Persian.

“He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse.” Since Iran has not “attacked another country aggressively for over a century,” he said in an e-mail exchange, “I smell the whiff of war propaganda.”

Also, ..

Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently laid out the case this way: “The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by Iran’s first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that ‘this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,’ just as the Shah’s regime in Iran had vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The ‘page of time’ phrase suggests he did not expect it to happen soon.”

However, the misinterpretation stuck. I bet you remembered this phrase from 2005 if you are over 30 years old. It made an impression on you.

Retractions don’t stick except for those who are critical thinkers and can do their own research. The damage is done, however, for the masses as the propagandist and manipulators in our midst use it for their own purposes, even if it could lead to WWIII, they don’t care.

So when the trustworthy AP (Associated Press, with the emphasis on the first three letters) publishes this:

The Associated Press @AP – 7:52 utc – 25 Jun 2019

BREAKING: Iran’s President Rouhani mocks President Trump, says the White House is “afflicted by mental retardation.”

Donald Trump believes his own propaganda source:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump – 14:42 utc – 25 Jun 2019

Iran leadership doesn’t understand the words “nice” or “compassion,” they never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone..

….The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not forgotten Iran’s use of IED’s & EFP’s (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more…

….Iran’s very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

Truth is, words matter. If one takes the exact Persian words and translate them, retarded is not one of them:

Reza H. Akbari @rezahakbari – 15:58 utc – 25 Jun 2019

Absolutely incorrect. There is a word for “retarded” in Persian & Rouhani didn’t use it. Prior to him saying “mental disability” he even prefaced his comment by saying “mental weakness.” Those who speak Persian can listen & judge for themselves. Here is a video clip of Rouhani’s comment: link

In this day and age when one has seen the United Nations with everyone having headsets on hearing in almost real time the speeches in their own language, how can this still happen in 2019?

Actual word for word translation:

“They have become stricken with mental incapability [Persian: natavani-ye zehni]. The White House has become stricken with mental disability [Persian: ma’luliyat-e zehni]. They don’t know what to do.”

As Moon of Alabama says:

It is hard to believe that such significant mistranslations of official ‘enemies’, left without a timely correction, happen accidentally.

For sure. This was no accident, this was done intentionally to keep stoking the fires towards war and more sanctions that only serve to hurt the less fortunate in Iran, which makes the US officials like Bolton and Pompeo smile and laugh out loud:

“This is a sick world we’re living in. Sick people” – Sinbad in Jingle All the Way (1996)

-SF1

You Know You Are Only a Tax Slave – When Government Only Sees the (Selective) Producer’s Side in Economics

All the talk from US President on tariffs lately and how China ripped the US off on $5B worth of trade yada, yada, yada. I honestly felt like puking. Here is this reality TV star .. errr I mean president of the USA totally falling for the whole “trade deficit” economic term made popular every now and then to distract citizens (direct tax slaves) from what is really going on.

One would think that twelve years (and more in many cases) of public education would have introduced kids and young adults to the realities of economics, but you must understand that this is “government” education. Need I say more?

I am so glad that Justin Amash (Republican Representitive – MI) called out Pres. Trump on this aversion of his tariff war and his protectionist tendencies and their unintended consequences:

Why is the president of the US, philosophically, the “people’s choice” (part of the balancing attribute of this “experiment” to tweak “representative government” of the executive, legislative and judicial branches), totally all in on making sure that certain producers in the US are protected from foreign competition?

Well, truth be known, there is and has been a consistent propensity since the nation’s birth toward having the general government (as it was called back in 1787 when the coup de’tat that jettisoned the Articles of Confederation and adopted the Constitution in secret) building protective bridges with the republics budding industries (like railroad, steel manufacturing, canal building, etc).

The Whig party from the early 19th century was all about the big business – general government “partnership” (dysfunctional co-dependency) that utilized tariff income, mainly from the southern ports to fund canal projects in the north and subsidize the steel industry since it was new and vulnerable to foreign competition. Abraham was big into this mercantilism philosophy that continued to grow (imagine a government program growing like a cancer) and demand more and more tariff revenue that led to the “Tariff of Abominations” in the 1828 that South Carolina almost decided NOT to pay this tariff:

It set a 38% tax on 92% of all imported goods. Industries in the northern United States were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods; the major goal of the tariff was to protect these industries by taxing those goods. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the U.S. made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South.

One would think that especially our political leaders would want to learn from history, but in fact, they want short term political bonds with big business to secure funding for the next political election season. By definition, a democracy (which this republic has become) is never interested in long term consequences to the decisions made, it is almost as bad as full on Marxism, socialism and communism in the way it treats future generations of a nation/region.

Last year when Pres. Trump first issues this threat of a tariff increase, Martin Armstrong (of Armstrong Economics) shed some truth on the matter:

The big problem is that Trump FAILS to understand how the economy truly functions. Imposing tariffs on foreign imports because they can produce something more efficiently is NOT protecting American jobs – its is imposing higher costs on the American public.

If America cannot compete against foreign steel and aluminum, the answer is not tariffs, but TAX REFORM and UNION REFORM. If unions fail to understand that demanding higher wages in an UN-competitive manner will only lead to the loss of jobs, then end result cannot be prevented by tariffs.

Once upon a time, New York City was the largest port in the United States. Because of unions and outrageous demands, little by little they killed their own jobs. Shipping moved to New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Virginia. What used to be a viable industry today is just a shadow of what it once was. No matter what the field, everything is subject to competition. Imposing tariffs is simply subsidizing overpaid jobs and higher taxes.

Another popular independent media personality, Pete Raymond, also pointed out to Pres. Trump that 150 years ago, Bastiat had already settled this issue:

What is hilarious is that even Bastiat in 1845 when he wrote this piece, (called “Candlestick Makers’ Petition” directed at the French Parliament) said:

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

Even in 1845 (and in 1828) there were plenty of books, musty books, on shelves unused and unread by government officials. The same holds true today, the idiots are elected while the wise refuse to wield power, the ugly and self-serving political type.

I do hope that some of you are aware of the Candlestick Makers’ Petition as Frederic Bastiat had a way in his short life to make economics simple enough that even a politician could understand. A teaser clip is below. Enjoy Mother’s Day celebrations today!

-SF1

You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and have little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun …

Priceless!

Empire Tactics: 1780 Green Dragoons/Hessians to 2019 US Special Ops/Blackwater

The benefit of knowing history is knowing when you are about to be scammed. In the past week we have heard that President Trump suddenly, without the blessing of his neo-con staff personnel, decided to exit Syria in the near-term. What happened next was typical to this empire’s entertainment aspects, people that were against war at some point in their life all of a sudden WANT war in Syria. I mean it was normal to hear most of Congress (who have been lobbied by the Military Industrial Complex – $$$) get upset that we can’t keep our “covert” war there intact since we have invested 7 years there with various rebel groups including ISIS.

It is all indeed a show, and having watched Home Alone over the Christmas break seeing Donald Trump giving advice to Kevin, we can’t be surprised in 2019 to understand that Donald Trump is still acting. All empires need good actors when they approach end of life status, it keeps the masses entertained while what is happening behind the scenes gets more and more desperate.

During the Revolutionary War, the British Empire used 30,000 Hessian mercenaries (30% of the total British force in the American Colonies) towards their attempt to hang on to their empire. Also deployed was their Green Dragoon Legions and the tactics that had local innocent citizens and their property in the cross-hairs of these forces.

During the follow-up of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the US Empire also used mercenaries in their attempt to hang on to the territory in Iraq as part of the US Empire. By 2007 there had been a huge number of incidents where these mercenaries were guilt of massacres throughout Iraq. In fact, trials are still ongoing here in 2019!

A more in depth article is this one by Chuck Baldwin who has been following closely the Trump promises before his election compared to the Trump realities to date. One of the most startling statistics is in the quote that follows:

.. the first two years of Trump’s presidency was a flagrant disavowal of that campaign promise. Not only did Trump not disengage our forces from these illegal and immoral wars, but, as I have documented, he dramatically INCREASED America’s involvement in these wars. In fact, President Trump has dropped more bombs on more people in his first two years of office than President Obama did in his entire last term in office. Plus, he sent thousands of additional ground troops to Afghanistan and Syria and several other countries.

So that leads us to Trump’s latest claim, that the US is “leaving” Syria and also drawing down troops in Afghanistan. Well, it all depends on who is doing the counting and what is being counted. Knowing full well that none of these numbers include deep state CIA operatives throughout the region, if we are talking “official military” personnel in Syria, the US claims that only 2000 are there currently. I highly doubt that. But what is really going on? Chuck says:

This month, in the January/February print issue of the gun and hunting magazine “Recoil,” the former contractor security firm Blackwater USA published a full-page ad, in all black with a simple message: “We are coming.”

Is the war in Afghanistan — and possibly elsewhere ― about to be privatized?

If Blackwater returns, it would be the return of a private security contractor that was banned from Iraq, but re-branded and never really went away.

21st century Hessians! This Empire is outsourcing the dirty work left behind by the 17 year Afghanistan conflict and the 7 year illegal intrusion into the sovereign nation of Syria that Obama pulled the trigger on.

The legacy is trillions spent, that we have a debt for, just to _______? You fill in the blank, is this to keep military contractors employed? Is this to keep the petro-dollar in placed globally? Is this to help Israel out .. perpetually?

And what of the US Empire’s legacy?

Here’s the horrifying part: These “private contractors,” i.e., mercenaries, operate in a manner that is totally unaccountable to the rule of law. Totally! They operate outside the Constitution, outside the Rules of Engagement, outside the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), outside the Law of Nations, outside law period—and also outside public scrutiny. There is virtually no accountability for whatever murders, rapes, plunderings or criminalities of any sort that these mercenaries commit.

More terrorists are home-grown the more the empire’s atrocities are known. This is “job-security” as the US Empire’s last gasp around the globe. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In summary, Chuck Baldwin concludes:

Combining Special Forces units that are already plagued with rampant abuses of power with mercenaries who are virtually unaccountable to any human authority is a recipe for the worst kind of barbarity and atrocity. This is what the Roman Empire did during its last days of power and what Great Britain did in its failed war against the American colonies. And this is exactly what Donald Trump is preparing to do. In fact, Trump is already setting the table for an unaccountable military force by shutting down military watchdog groups, thus turning off the light of public knowledge and ensuring military unaccountability.

The “swamp” is still intact. The cynic in me points to the root of this nation’s poisonous government. Many, including Chuck claim that if we would just get back to the Constitution … yeah, it was never meant to be “got back to”. As Lysander Spooner said in the 19th century:

“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
― Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority

My thinking, thanks to Ben Stone’s efforts and his manual , has evolved to this:

When I first read this a year ago I just laughed. About six months ago I read this and still thought that maybe Thomas Jefferson was blindsided by this whole Constitution coup d’tat that happened while he was Ambassador to France. I understood that George Washington was a Federalist at heart and wanted a mini-British nation on this continent, and that Benjamin Franklin was getting old and nodded his consent. But the likes of George Mason and Patrick Henry saw through all this and rightfully noted the slippery slope that this document created a path for going forward.

I now think that Thomas Jefferson really thought that there would be another revolution inside a generation as what was created was just an “experiment”, a beta-test version 1.0 of a federated republic that would have checks and balances like nullification and secession options that could keep it grounded until another version could be tried.

I do think that the pioneer spirit of that founding generation did not even last a decade before this country fell back into its old ways. Before you know it you have George Washington taking thousands of troops into Pennsylvania to enforce a 25% Whiskey Tax to fund his government. You can not possibly make this stuff up!

Happy 2019 y’all .. I will try to stay more positive in my future posts this year, if the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.

-SF1

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun – Ecclesiastes 1:9